


Radiant

by englandwouldfalljohn



Series: The After Life [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anxious Crowley (Good Omens), BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Falling Stars, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Love Confessions, M/M, Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Other, POV Crowley (Good Omens), Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), Soft Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:54:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23653426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/englandwouldfalljohn/pseuds/englandwouldfalljohn
Summary: A chipper angel, an anxious demon, and a meteor shower...
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: The After Life [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1703005
Comments: 11
Kudos: 64





	Radiant

**Author's Note:**

> For Isobel, who wondered how they'd say it.
> 
> Thank you [MrsNoggin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsNoggin/pseuds/MrsNoggin) for the read-through. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

With every snakeskin footfall, another faint crunch drove precious sleep further from Crowley’s mind. It was gone two in the morning, and the first frost had settled on the early October grass. His trademark swagger was stilted by the chill, and as his ankle twisted precariously on the lawn, he gave it up as a bad job and trudged along dejectedly. It wasn’t as though Aziraphale would notice; so enthralled was he with this outing that even from several paces back, Crowley tasted the metallic edge of restrained wings cutting through the air.

Aziraphale finally came to a halt in the center of the park, heaving a musty patchwork quilt onto the slight rise of hill with a satisfied hum. He cozied himself into the blanket, patting the space beside him waggishly. Crowley’s vertebrae clacked, rearranging themselves until the permutation lock of his poorly-veiled anxiety released him for downward movement.

He had come for the reasons he had always come, not one of which he was inclined to articulate. Instead, he lay back as casually as he could manage, convincing himself the lump in his throat was a psychosomatic extension of the wool batting pressing unevenly into his spine. 

And then it happened. The first streaks of light shattered the electric peace of the London sky. They weren’t real stars, he reminded himself. Just bits of debris. Space gravel, really. Little chunks of flotsam, falling from the heavens, burning to nothingness as they plummeted to their end.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

His peripheral vision admitted a cloud-edge of warm breath, a construct of dutiful devotion which his companion had developed a hundred years ago or more. It spoke to him once of their separateness, a chasm of intention bridged neither by indulgence nor immortality. Here, though, against the silhouette of fig trees and scarlet oak, it became the haze of nebulae, the birthing grounds of hope.

‘It’s fine, I guess,’ he rasped, wishing emotions could be miracled away as stains from linen. ‘Bunch of oversized cosmic dust bunnies meeting the atmosphere, not sure what the big deal is.’

‘It’s not _just_ that though, is it?’

‘What d’you mean?’ His head whipped to the side accusingly faster than his mind could control it. Curse his infernal quest for answers, and his inability to keep his bloody mouth shut.

‘It’s all rather dramatic. All of these meteors, shooting across the sky. It’s predictably chaotic. I find it absolutely splendid.’

The origami desperation creasing Crowley’s linear features must have made the plea on his behalf. Aziraphale’s irises flashed otherworldly beneath celestial pyrotechnics, the storm of gravitation now threatening more than the stability of a distant patch of earth.

‘You must realize it reminds me of you.’

Tremors of quiet ferocity reverberated through Crowley’s bones; his heart ached to share Aziraphale’s vision, to discover for himself such grace in the fall. What might he have done, which deceptively redemptive act in his near-infinite existence, had allowed him to occupy precisely this space might forever be unknown to him. One truth, however -- one exceedingly complex truth -- was not.

‘I do feel it, you know. It’s just… the limitations of this earthly vocabulary. And I am a demon, after all, which--’ the lift of an eyebrow stilled his drift toward self-pity. Another night. ‘Perhaps it’s… well perhaps in the end, it’s actually…’

‘Ineffable?’ Aziraphale suggested, melting into unabashed tenderness.

The corner of Crowley’s mouth lifted as he burrowed his freezing nose into Aziraphale’s scarved neck.

‘Hmm.’ Repetition would be ironic and pointless, he reasoned, feigning frustration at his newfound inability to deceive himself. 

‘I liked your hair long.’ Pale fingers stroked circles into his scalp, scattering his fleeting thoughts. ‘The braid… I liked the braid.’

‘You noticed that?’ Crowley hissed drowsily, his interrupted sleep returning to claim him.

‘My darling. I’ve noticed everything.’


End file.
